Wireless service providers are under constant pressure by their customers to improve and expand coverage while decreasing the cost of service. This conflicts with the pressure from investors and stockholders to increase earnings and decrease expenses. In addition, local zoning and regulatory pressures often limit or preclude placement of base station sites in the optimum locations. Additionally, as technology progresses, wireless service providers and their suppliers are constantly having to spend large amounts of capital to upgrade existing base stations to be able to support new modulation schemes and released frequency spectrums.
This invention incorporates several concepts to create a “future-proof” repeater that significantly reduces the costs for a repeater site. It will allow for wireless service providers to launch next generation networks utilizing only software changes. In one embodiment of the invention, the only equipment to install is the repeater itself and the primary power cables. In addition, the repeater station in this invention contains support software and equipment to allow the repeater station to perform antenna alignment and gain set up with only minimal support from technical personnel. Changes to the modulation scheme, frequency bands, power levels, regulatory requirements, or any other parameter can be satisfied solely by software changes remotely. This invention, while potentially increasing the one-time hardware repeater costs, dramatically results in a reduction of the total cost of a repeater site as then tower service providers can automatically support all the wireless service providers and incremental as well as generational changes without hardware changes or site-visits.
This invention can also be used to provide in a vast array of applications on any platform whether it be stationary or mobile (to encompass marine, auto, airborne, and space-based platforms) to provide interconnectivity where previously not possible. Additionally, being that any transmitted source of data is a potential input, this invention can provide functionality that is not currently available to the mass market to include technologies that both currently exist such as providing traditional 2.4 GHz WiFi from cellular base stations to technologies that do not have existing market utilization or products such as 96 GHz EHF microwave links on satellites.